"black lie" meaning in English

See black lie in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: black lies [plural]
Etymology: Coined in contradistinction to white lie. Head templates: {{en-noun}} black lie (plural black lies)
  1. (idiomatic) A deliberately untrue statement made with malicious or unethical intent. Tags: idiomatic

Inflected forms

{
  "etymology_text": "Coined in contradistinction to white lie.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "black lies",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "black lie (plural black lies)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Idioms involving colors",
          "orig": "en:Idioms involving colors",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Lying",
          "orig": "en:Lying",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A deliberately untrue statement made with malicious or unethical intent."
      ],
      "id": "en-black_lie-en-noun-tlxVnkVn",
      "links": [
        [
          "deliberate",
          "deliberate"
        ],
        [
          "untrue",
          "untrue"
        ],
        [
          "statement",
          "statement"
        ],
        [
          "malicious",
          "malicious"
        ],
        [
          "unethical",
          "unethical"
        ],
        [
          "intent",
          "intent"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) A deliberately untrue statement made with malicious or unethical intent."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "black lie"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "Coined in contradistinction to white lie.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "black lies",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "black lie (plural black lies)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English countable nouns",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries",
        "en:Idioms involving colors",
        "en:Lying"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A deliberately untrue statement made with malicious or unethical intent."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "deliberate",
          "deliberate"
        ],
        [
          "untrue",
          "untrue"
        ],
        [
          "statement",
          "statement"
        ],
        [
          "malicious",
          "malicious"
        ],
        [
          "unethical",
          "unethical"
        ],
        [
          "intent",
          "intent"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) A deliberately untrue statement made with malicious or unethical intent."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "black lie"
}

Download raw JSONL data for black lie meaning in English (0.9kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-09-09 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-09-02 using wiktextract (ccec6f1 and 4deed51). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.